Essien likely done, World Cup dreams in doubt

You may have hardly even noticed, but Chelsea and Ghana star Michael Essien has not played for his London club team in five months since he tore his hamstring against APOEL in the Champions League in December, and trust me Chelsea have missed his presence dearly.

Essien has not recovered fully from the knee injury he sustained in the African Nations Cup, supposedly a partially torn MCL and meniscus. But who really knows, the doctors and staff at Chelsea have really kept the details under wraps.

Apparently Essien had some sort of relapse in training, and had to have 4 surgeries in two weeks - remember when people were upset that Tom Brady had to have a couple of surgeries to fix the infections in his surgically repaired knee, that's what it sounds like to me. And with only 4 EPL games left as well as the FA Cup final still left play for the London club, the Ghana star is a serious doubt to return.

"Michael Essien will not be in the squad for the weekend's game against Stoke City at Stamford Bridge,'' said a club spokesman, according to an ESPNsoccernet story. "The Ghanaian's participation in the remainder of the campaign is now in doubt, with only four games to play including the FA Cup Final on May 15.''

I had a discussion with Austin recently about how important Essien is to Chelsea and how big a star he is in the game in general. He argued that Essien is not only the best player on their team, but is a top-5 player in the world.

He may be right, Essien is one of those rare talents that could play any position on the field and be tremendous but at Chelsea he really connects the defense to Frank Lampard and the offense - he is really the engine that makes that team go.

He doesn't score a ton of goals, but when he lines up a shot look out. And when he does score they are usually sensational, take a look at a couple of these majestic strikes.

As one of the real ambassadors of the African game, it would be a true shame if Essien was not there at South Africa to represent his side. He is probably the best African footballer going when he is fully healthy and Ghana is one of the dark horses to make a deep run with him in play. However, without Essien, Ghana will struggle to make it past the group stage.